Onto to Lushoto

As much as we hoped this wouldn't be a full travel day, it was. To make our way to Lushoto, we had to bus back to Tanga, then to Lushoto stopping in Muheza and Segera, and transferring onto a dalla dalla from Mombo. Local transportation here stops whenever someone wants to get on or off, which makes for slow moving progress.

Our goal was to arrive in Lushoto in time to book a hike through the Usambara mountains for the morning, but we arrived much later then hoped. Still - anything is possible as a Muzungu. We got out of our transport in Lushoto and started looking for accommodation as it was getting dark. Within a few minute we were sitting inside a tourist office talking about prices for the hike. The man insisted on accompanying us to find a room for the night, which we usually resist but this time we needed him to hook us up with a hike so we didn't mind.
25,000TZS for the room, including breakfast. And we negotiated for 50$/day/person (from 65$/day) for a 3 day hike, ending in Mtae.

During the negotiations, we walked out saying we wanted to get food, really wanting to see what other companies had to offer. But instead, we found out it was market day and we ended up walking around the local market for half an hour, starved and not speaking to any other tour operators... Maybe not the most productive use of our time, but I love markets! We bought a sweater for the mountains since it's colder and paid the amazing local price of 2,500TZS (1.44$CAD). After this useless and wonderful experience, we returned to our tour guy to book everything. So it's 6.30pm and we booked a private guide who will feed us and bring us to housing for 3 days, leaving the next morning at 8am. Tanzania is making this too easy.

We finally got to eating - it is now 630pm, and all we've had is chapati and banana in the morning, I bought a plain white cake piece and some oranges from the bus window, and that's it. So we sat with the locals and had ourselves some street food. It's the first time we took 2 plates! So far, we've shared the one plate and it's been enough, but this time we hungry! And then of course, like most tourists are familiar with, I ended up spending the night creating symphonies in the washroom, not looking forward to the risk of dehydration tomorrow. Yay for me!Read more